By: Zakaria) *
Hoaxes and disinformation are dangerous viruses that can hinder the handling of Covid-19. The government and society are also asked to work together in eradicating these hoaxes and disinformation.
The Ministry of Communication and Information (Kemenkominfo) found 97 hoax issues related to the covid-19 vaccine until February 1, 2021. Internet content control coordinator of the Directorate General of Communication and Information Applications, Anthonius Malau, said that the 97 hoax issues were spread across 280 social media content.
In a press conference related to hoaxes broadcast online, Anthonius said, “Facebook remains the highest with 198 hoax content, followed by twitter with 39, youtube 22, tiktok 15 and Instagram 6.
Anthonius continued, this number is an accumulation of the addition of hoaxes this week, namely 10 hoax issues spread across 83 social media platforms between 25 to 31 January 2021. However, the Ministry of Communication and Information has followed up on the hoax findings by takedown or blocking them.
Meanwhile, Anthonius revealed that there were around 1,402 hoaxes related to Covid-19 in general. This was a recapitulation from January 23, 2020 to February 2021, which was spread across 2,242 social media content.
In January, a 2.04-minute video was circulated on social media showing a video clip of the explanation of the Head of the Covid-19 and National Economic Recovery Implementation Team, Erick Thohir, along with other video clips claiming that the Covid-19 vaccine has components that can trace it. the location of people who have been injected with the Covid-19 vaccine.
In fact, this information is not true.
Spokesperson for the Ministry of Communication and Information, Dedy Permadi, stated that this information was a hoax. The barcode on the Covid-19 vaccine packaging, described by Erick Thohir in the video, is used for tracking vaccine distribution and does not stick to people who have received the vaccine.
In addition, there was also an uproar in the news stating that the synovac vaccine has dangerous ingredients, which led to blaming the meaning of the writing on the vaccine packaging.
The Sinovac vaccine hoax is quite unsettling for the public to make them hesitant to join the vaccination program. Bio Farma emphasized not to easily believe such unofficial news.
In addition there is also a hoax stating that Sinovac is a vaccine containing vero cells from African green monkeys and has not been tested for its halalness. Of course this information is untrue and illogical.
There are also hoaxes that say that borax and formaldehyde are mentioned in the corona vaccine. Even though the synovac vaccine is produced without using preservatives and does not contain ingredients such as borax or formalin.
In the production process, the Sinovac vaccine uses an inactivated method to kill the virus so that the vaccine does not contain live or attenuated viruses.
The spread of hoaxes in Indonesia is one of the most complicated problems, where this problem seems to have triggered the phenomenon of breaking up of friendships, friction and enmity.
From this problem, of course the question arises, why do so many people easily believe in hoax information and why is it so massive even though the truth is not yet certain.
The hoaxes related to vaccines have also managed to infiltrate the WhatsApp chat application which states that Kasdim 0817 Gresik, Major Sugeng Riyadi, died after receiving a Covid-19 vaccine injection.
In fact, Major Inf, Sugeng Riyadi received the vaccine at the Ibnu Sina Regional Hospital on January 15, and until now he is in a healthy state.
Laras Sekarasih, PhD as a lecturer in Media Psychology from the University of Indonesia (UI) said that people are more likely to believe in hoaxes if the information obtained matches their opinion or attitude.
For example, someone does not agree with the vaccine program, then in cyberspace there is hoax news about the dangers of vaccines, this of course makes him easy to believe this false news.
Naturally, positive feelings will arise in a person when someone affirms what he believes. This affirmation also triggers someone to easily pass hoax information to other parties.
The spread of hoaxes, apart from having affirmed feelings, is also influenced by the anonymity of the hoax message itself.
Hoaxes can be countered by looking for news with comparative sources and not easily sharing news that only pursues brutality. Do not let our thumbs press 1 button which makes a lot of people get lost.
) * The author is a citizen living in Bogor